Whale stranding focus of AVC’s 2018 Animal Welfare in Practice conference

The Atlantic Veterinary College’s 2018 Animal Welfare in Practice conference shines a spotlight on the timely topic of whale stranding. The conference will take place at UPEI and AVC from September 14 to 15.

Keynote speaker Dr. Michael Moore, Director, Marine Mammal Center at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Cape Cod, will give a public lecture called “Food for Thought: How we all kill whales” on Friday, September 14, at 7 p.m., in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium, Don and Marion McDougall Hall, UPEI.

Human activity in the marine environment is increasingly having an impact on cetaceans—whales, dolphins, and porpoises—sometimes resulting in the unintentional entanglement and death of animals. Dr. Moore will discuss these pressing issues, which concern Canada and other nations that have substantial fishing and shipping industries in marine environments.

There is no charge to attend Dr. Moore’s lecture. All are welcome to attend.

All presentations on Saturday, September 15, will take place at AVC. Registration is required for these presentations, which are open to veterinarians, veterinary students, animal health technicians, and people involved in marine mammal rescue organizations.

On Saturday, Drs. Pierre-Yves Daoust and Art Ortenburger, Atlantic Veterinary College, will give a session about clinical management of live cetaceans on the beach. Tonya Wimmer, Marine Animal Response Society, will speak about the complexities and logistics of dealing with live cetaceans.

Dr. Moore will give two presentations on the Saturday, one on relatively new information on sedation of whales at sea to enhance disentanglement operations, and the other on trauma in cetaceans caused by human activity, and diagnosis of, and solutions to, this problem.

The conference wraps up with a staged stranded whale response workshop in the AVC Large Animal Hospital arena, using an inflatable whale. Blue tarps will be used to simulate the sea, while the sand in the arena will be the shore.

The Animal Welfare in Practice conference is co-hosted by the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre and the AVC Animal Welfare, Exotics, Lab Animal and Wildlife, and Aquatics Clubs, with support from the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada.

For more information, visit awc.upei.ca/